Wishing You were Somehow Here Again

I have been busy lately. Productive busy. The kind of busy that when you fall asleep, sometimes you're still dressed. Good busy. But very busy.

I went to Coco-pop's Chanuka Mesiba today. She glowed, singing the songs. My camera only shows glimpses of her; the Very Animated girl to her left enthusiastically blocked her with every shake of her candle pom-pom and her menorah cymbal, but they were very sweet glimpses.

I am not a huge fan of the productions they do in this country. They are flashy and fancy and the music they play for the girls to sing along with has a singer that completely drown them out. As I have mentioned before, I think it is a very group-think oriented exersise and goes against my American grain. I try very hard to see the positive in it, but here was positive; Coco-pop's smile and the little line betwen her eyebrows as she concentrated on remembering all of the words to the songs.

I sit in the little tiny chair, filming my girl (and her animated bench-mate) for five minutes before the battery runs out on the camera. Oops. The rest of the time I sit and watch. She is so cute. Then the mesaba winds to a close. Not! The mesaba launches into another song. It is long, the animated girl is blocking Coco-pop again, and I sit on the tiny chair holding a dead camera doing nothing for the first time in a while. And I'm thinking, Abba, Abba, I miss you so much Abba. I am suddenly aware that tears are rolling down my cheeks. Mortified, I wipe my face. They keep coming.

I think of Coco-pop, how sensitive she is to my moods and how excited she was about this day. I do not want to ruin it for her. But I can't stop myself.

Someone leans over and asks me a question. I smile and answer and do my best to get into a conversation with her in my sin-against-humanity awful Hebrew. I distract myself seaching for a word and the tears stop.

I keep busy. So busy. Because underneath the busy all I am thinking is,Abba, Abba, I miss you so much Abba.

Coco-pop wants to know what Sabba is doing in shamayim.

He is walking and talking up there. He is basking in the light of the shechina, I tell her, I tell myself. He is free. He is at peace.

I know that.

I'm not sad for him.

I'm sad for me.